Enjoy this article by guest authors and artists, John Hulsey and Ann Trusty, who are discovering the joys of painting water and what to do when challenges present themselves. And don’t miss out on The Complete Essentials of Painting Water with award-winning artist and experienced painting teacher, Johannes Vloothuis. In this online painting course, follow along as Vloothuis shares essential tips and tricks for painting realistic water, with step-by-step demos in watercolor, oil and pastel. Cheers!

4 Plein Air Tips

Water is perhaps one of the more challenging subjects to paint convincingly in a plein air landscape painting. Whether one is inspired by the ocean, a river, or a pond or lake, each subject requires a studied familiarity and often distinctly different paint handling.

Here are a just a few tips that we consider helpful when painting water:

1: The sky and the water generally share the same colors, although the water will be darker in value. Draw a solid horizon or shore line and block them in at the same time to make sure they have shared colors.

2: Ocean waves in constant motion present a challenge for the plein air painter because you want to capture the movement and the light effects that occur in breaking waves. The wave changes color and value as it gains height and thins out just before breaking.

Until a wave begins to break, it shares the color of the sky. As it rises, it becomes a transparent window into the wave itself, and so turns greenish, and may even pick up the color of the sand for an instant just as it breaks. A great way to quickly get proficient at painting waves is to paint with only a palette knife.

Gore Creek I, oil on canvas, 36 x 48.

3: Still water on lakes, ponds and even placid rivers presents the challenge of painting reflections, often filled with sunrise or sunset colors. Maxfield Parrish used to build a model landscape on a mirror in order to get his reflections right in his realistic studio paintings. In plein air, however, we must analyze on the spot, and render those reflections in a much looser, more gestural way.

Unless the reflection is your subject, try rendering it as a large tonal mass of color, rather than a lot of individual strokes. Keep in mind that reflections are always darker than the object itself. Water surfaces scatter light and therefore are not perfect mirrors. It gets really complicated when a reflection is combined with transparency effects in shallow water, where the bottom can show through to the surface.

In the Spring Garden IV, watercolor, 12 x 16.

4: Painting water-lilies or leaves floating on water adds an object and therefore a shadow onto a reflective surface, interrupting what could otherwise be a smooth expanse of color. A good approach with opaque mediums is to paint the water first and add the reflections, objects, and shadows, later.

Watercolor requires an entirely different approach and multiple techniques–carefully painting the surface colors around any objects or reflections, leaving “holes” to fill in later. There isn’t much room in watercolor to fix mistakes and perhaps that’s why we like it. But there is something very synergistic about using watercolors to paint water that just feels right.

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What “water works” have you done lately? Leave a comment with links to your work and your own tips you’ve discovered for painting various bodies of water.

–John and Ann

For more in-depth articles on plein air painting, visit John and Ann at The Artist’s Road.

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Comments (9)

One of the things I’ve discovered is that every color under sun or moon is possible. So if in doubt just put the colors in, and don’t worry about “getting it right”. If you’ve been around water, greens, pinks, purples, plus myriad reflections, and layers are possible. “Cuyahoga” entering the locks, Lake Superior.

One of the things I’ve discovered is that every color under sun or moon is possible. So if in doubt just put the colors in, and don’t worry about “getting it right”. If you’ve been around water, greens, pinks, purples, plus myriad reflections, and layers are possible. “Cuyahoga” entering the locks, Lake Superior.

It has been my experience that:
On still waters, reflections of dark objects are usually a little lighter and reflections of light objects are usually a little darker.

In the painting “In the Spring Garden IV”, above, the fish almost appear floating on the surface.
Since the top of the fish is closer to the surface, it would have the most local intense color, but as the side of the fish slopes away from the viewer, I think it should reflect the color of objects from below or in the water, thus creating the illusion of being submerged.
JoeFR

Painting aquatic scenes with a water medium is, as with all art, a matter of looking and you will see. It is a skill that is honed with practice. Being able to keep the white paper is the key to any watercolour painting and giving depth to these highlights with a strong contrast. The wonder of watercolour is that it mixes on the page and sometimes the effects are magical. http://www.deejackson.com.au

On reflection 50% of my paintings have water. I live a lot of the year on a boat and the wonderful reflections that occur at any time of the day in any weather seal themselves into my mind. I found to paint water whether sea.. river..lagoon..spilt wine was and still is a great feeling for me. I usually paint in acrylics and find layering and bringing the bush across the work first then short down strokes builds up depth in deep waters. In more shallow waters not so many layers using the same technique and bringing in more reflection gives a satisfying effect for me. My Facebook tag Brenda Woods album named paintings is open to the public and shows examples.

On reflection 50% of my paintings have water. I live a lot of the year on a boat and the wonderful reflections that occur at any time of the day in any weather seal themselves into my mind. I found to paint water whether sea.. river..lagoon..spilt wine was and still is a great feeling for me. I usually paint in acrylics and find layering and bringing the bush across the work first then short down strokes builds up depth in deep waters. In more shallow waters not so many layers using the same technique and bringing in more reflection gives a satisfying effect for me. My Facebook tag Brenda Woods album named paintings is open to the public and shows examples.

On reflection 50% of my paintings have water. I live a lot of the year on a boat and the wonderful reflections that occur at any time of the day in any weather seal themselves into my mind. I found to paint water whether sea.. river..lagoon..spilt wine was and still is a great feeling for me. I usually paint in acrylics and find layering and bringing the bush across the work first then short down strokes builds up depth in deep waters. In more shallow waters not so many layers using the same technique and bringing in more reflection gives a satisfying effect for me. My Facebook tag Brenda Woods album named paintings is open to the public and shows examples.